


This Life is Not Yet Rated

by xraelynn



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Mulder returns, POV Dana Scully, POV Mulder, Season/Series 08, William as a baby, therapeutic sunflower seeds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-22 18:55:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13770420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xraelynn/pseuds/xraelynn
Summary: So far, my improbable resurrection from the dead bears an uncomfortable resemblance to a movie trailer: All the critical action is there, but no one is sure how it's going to end.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ROYAL: "This illness, this closeness to death...it's had a profound effect on me. I feel like a different person, I really do."  
> RICHIE: "Dad, you were never dying."  
> ROYAL: "But I'm gonna live."  
> —THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, 2001

They begin and end the same way: fade to black, punctuated by ominous sound and chaotic anticipation. There is the urgent narrator, the flash of white light, the epiphany of true love jeopardized by fate and firestorm.

So far, my improbable resurrection from the dead bears an uncomfortable resemblance to a movie trailer: All the critical action is there, but no one is sure how it's going to end.

"Mulder?"

Busted. Even William's lusty hunger cry isn't as effective as the razor edge of Scully's voice at cutting into my reverie (which, in the interest of full disclosure, Scully might be tempted to term a "flashback," but then again, Scully's probably been privy to enough of my digital picture, Dolby surround sound flashbacks to know the difference). Scully's eyeing me with that look that's equal parts concern and suspicion, and her tone is the distinctive one she reserves exclusively for these particular moments. Newly upgraded from "Lecturing my Lunatic Partner" to "Empathizing With an Undead Mulder," it is 50% "Mulder, I'm so grateful you returned from the grave to be the father of my child," 45% "Mulder, I think you may need psychiatric help to cope with these episodes" and — if my finely calibrated lust detector hasn't gone on the fritz after three months in the ground — 5% "Mulder, I could jump you right now."

Death may have dampened my libido, but it hasn't slain my appreciation for irony.

"You're doing it again," she observes, not unkindly, and the best response I can muster is an unconvincing "Oh. Sorry."

She sighs. "Mulder..."

"I'm working on it," I interrupt, a hasty attempt to pre-empt the inevitable rehashing of my death that follows ad nauseum every time Scully thinks I've hazed out on her. For God's sake, I sometimes feel like shouting, I spent three months experiencing the ultimate reverie to end all reveries — in a coffin — so can you blame me for getting a little distracted every once in a while?

Apparently Scully cannot, because her expression softens as she deftly plucks William from my arms.

"I know you are, Mulder," she says gently.

She's always been this efficient, my Scully — express her misgivings, discreetly remove William from the potential danger of his zombie father's carelessness, then skillfully smooth it all over with that look I once thought I might be fated to carry with me as my last memory of the earth. Point, set, match. As if he agrees with my thoughts, William nuzzles sleepily up to his mother without so much as a yawn to object his transfer from Zombie-Dad to Super-Mom.

"He needs a diaper change," she says quietly; all those years of performing autopsies on rotting creatures from the black lagoon have left Scully much too dignified to wrinkle her nose at the smell.

Ah, I think, this could be my cue. From Zombie Dad to Ward Cleaver — isn't that how it would go in the Paramount Pictures preview? With Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle" wailing mournfully in the background, no doubt. Abruptly I'm on my feet, reaching out for William with arms that — for once — don't tremble upon extension. Point for me.

"I'll take care of it," I say, attempting a smile. These days, it feels more like I'm baring my teeth, and Scully regards me with a split-second change of expression that — before her own small smile breaks through — I recognize instantly as doubt. Scully may be a mother on maternity leave, but I've seen that face enough times — usually while regaling her with one of my lunatic theories — to be acquainted with it intimately.

It's the only thing I've become acquainted with intimately in the past few weeks, in fact, but I suppose intimacy issues are just another side effect of resurrection the Apostles never mentioned in the New Testament.

"Mulder, are you sure..." she starts to say slowly.

"He's my son," I say breezily, "of course I'm sure."

Scully considers this for a moment with an expression that clearly means she knows "sure" is Mulder-code for "terrified," but a moment later William is in my arms, chubby and soft with a diaper full of fumes and an expression of pure baby bliss on his face. During the deft transfer of William from her arms to mine, Scully takes advantage of our close proximity by wrapping her arms around me as if she can wring the nightmares out of me.

"You just need some time," she says softly, ignoring the stiffness in my stance. Technically, Scully, this is my afterlife, and I've got an eternity ahead of me to get over my death. Which brings up an interesting theological question, I muse as I look from Scully's encouraging eyes to the top of Will's fuzzy head: Does that make this heaven, hell, or someplace in between?

"You like it in there, huh, big guy?" I murmur as I unfasten the straps on his tiny overalls. Half-asleep, William smiles beatifically in return — I think; I haven't yet mastered the fine distinction between smiles and gas. If it weren't for the inevitable doom and misery that seems to hang over Scully's and my family like a dark cloud, I'd even venture to say that our son has it made: Hot mom, doting grandma, devoted if mildly awkward godfathers in high places within the federal government. Hungry? Breastmilk trumps takeout pizza any day of the week. Dad's returned from the dead? Hey, no problem.

The dead, I think, my son sleeps like the dead — and then abruptly the blackness is upon me again, swimming over my eyes like the black cancer pinned me down, and William is screaming the cry of the grievously wounded, the one that says a great injustice is being done and I have the wet diaper to prove it.

"Mulder? Mulder!" Suddenly there are hands on me — hands that dug my grave, I think; hands that held me to a steel chair and drilled holes in my teeth, hands that carved my headstone and forced me underground — and I know I have to fight my way out of the coffin, up and out of the earth and back to my son, I have to fight against the blinding light and stunning blackness, I cannot let them take me again —

"Mulder." The voice is commanding and gentle and just a little bit frightened. Scully's voice. Scully's hands. Suddenly it's not the issue of life after death that worries me; it's the terrifying absence of Scully after death I'm concerned with.

"There was nothing," I mumble, clumsily pushing her hand away as it hones in on my forehead. No Scully. No William. Not even the ghost of my father or Deep Throat doing the "Welcome to the Afterlife" greatest hits. I'd been in my grave, in the ground, and there had been nothing.

Scully obviously misunderstands me, because she shoots me the most tight-lipped glare I've seen out of her in a long time. Oh boy. If that was a sneak peek, it's obviously going to be one hell of an opening weekend.

"Mulder, that was not nothing," she says, in a vice that's only beginning to gather steam. The blackness flickers and dims a little — my flashbacks are never as pleasantly fuzzy-edged as they are in the movies — and Scully's face swirls into focus. She's holding William against one arm in that casual way that seems instinctive to mothers, and for the first time I notice a tiny New York Yankees insignia on the front of his overalls. Well. She must have decided to start off slow in introducing the kid to his old man's legacy. "Your dad was a Yankees fan, William" goes down a whole lot smoother than "Your dad managed to get himself abducted and killed by alien beings seeking to colonize the planet."

Abducted. Killed. Colonize. Suddenly I can't breathe, and Scully's hands hit my chest like shovelfuls of dirt thumping onto my grave. She must be shouting something at me, I think hazily, shouting to disturb the oppressive silence. Show a little respect for the dead, Scully —

* * *

The flashback sputters out into the kind of anticipatory silence you hear in theaters before the movie begins. Experimentally, I crack open one eye, expecting to see Scully preparing to regale me with the latest version of her post-flashback wake-up call. But instead -- looking a little fuzzy and indistinct around the edges -- I see...Skinner?

"I must be in hell," I mumble. Skinner regards me impassively over the lenses of his glasses.

"Scully will be back any minute," he says in what he obviously considers a soothing voice.

"With an armload of pharmaceuticals, I suppose?" I reply sarcastically. By this time the room is in focus enough that I decide it's probably okay to sit up. I'm on Scully's couch, I realize, ignoring the way Skinner is studiously pretending he's not categorizing my every move.

"How long was I out?" I grumble, letting my head flop back against the pillow. It retorts with a loud squeak and I startle like I've been stuck with a pin. Skinner reaches behind me and wordlessly hands me a plastic hippo.

"William's," he says needlessly, but the name hits me like a punch to the gut. William. My son, whose diaper I can't even manage to change without haring out completely.

"And in answer to your question," he continues, "long enough for me to drive over here during rush hour and help Scully peel you off the floor."

"She called you," I repeat in disbelief. Skinner doesn't dignify that with a response. "She usually just drugs me up and calls 911," I mutter. Skinner raises an eyebrow.

"Usually?"

In truth, Skinner and I both know perfectly well that Scully does nothing of the sort; in fact, the last person to hold me down and let a paramedic shoot me full of drugs was none other than the Skin-Man himself, and that was years before my recent journey to the other side.

Skinner can't know what I'm thinking, but for a moment we stare each other down in silence, like we're back in 1994 and he's just called me into his office to demand an explanation for one bullshit stunt or the other. Then, improbably, his face softens. Tenderness has always seemed out of place on Skinner, somehow awkward or oversized, and I can feel the muscles in the back of my throat tense and tighten.

"This was a bad one, Mulder," he says.

I can't meet his eyes to confirm the pity there, so I study the blue hippo instead. It's the same size as a fist, what any sixth-grade science teacher will tell you is the size of a human heart.

"Yeah." I don't elaborate. Then suddenly the slow-firing synapses in my brain make an important connection: Scully's gone. Skinner's here. So is the plastic hippo, quite obviously, an object that holds special significance for my son —

Where's William?

I don't realize I've spoken it aloud until Skinner gives me an appraising look, as if he's been clocking the moments until I manage to inquire about my son's well-being.

"He's inside," Skinner says, nodding towards Will's bedroom as I stagger to my feet, strangely weak with relief.

"Is he...?"

Skinner follows me to the doorway of the nursery Scully tells me she and her mother decorated themselves with pale blue- and white-striped wallpaper. I suspect the gender-typing may have been more Margaret Scully's influence that Dana's.

"He's fine, Mulder," Skinner says quietly, but something tells me an unspoken "...this time" hangs at the fringes of his "Don't Wake the Baby" voice.

"Mulder," he says carefully, "Dana called me today because she was worried for you."

He pauses expectantly, perhaps anticipating an argument, but I'm too preoccupied with "Dana" to reply.

Does Doggett call her Dana, too?

"I know you've been having some difficulties these past few weeks," he continues. In fact, "difficulties" is a woefully understated euphemism for whatever it is I've been having, but then I always did appreciate Skinner's talent for creative rhetoric.

He hesitates again, looking away from me to William's bedroom, and I realize with slight surprise that this is trying for him too.

"Scully tells me you steadfastly refuse to talk about it. I'm not suggesting you see a counselor or a psychiatrist. I know perfectly well the reasons you can't. But...as someone who's had a similar experience — "

"A body bag isn't the same thing as a coffin, sir," I snap, regretting it instantly when Skinner's eyes harden.

"I'm not purporting to know what you went through, or what you're going through," he hisses. "My God, Mulder, I...I _watched_ you step into that clearing, and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. I listened to Scully plead with me to help you when you had obviously been dead for days, and I didn't do a damn thing about that either. Mulder...we put you in the ground," he says, his voice betraying a quiet agony.

My own agony has been anything but quiet. Skinner's voice returns in flashes: the clearing, that terrifying drill, the memory of Scully's face. My body, in the ground. Fortunately, my brain seems equipped to trigger only one large- scale freakout per day; I close my eyes against Skinner's words, but nothing is behind the lids but darkness.

"Scully just wants to help you. In any way she can," he finishes.

"What was it like?" I ask suddenly. Skinner's mouth twitches in confusion.

"What was what like?"

"My funeral," I elaborate. "What was it like?"

It's a cruel question. He blanches and his eyes flicker toward the living room, as if he's afraid Scully will walk in on this conversation.

"You've already mentioned 'dead' and 'ground,' I think we're well past the point of trying not to trigger a flashback," I press him. Skinner shakes his head.

"Mulder, you don't want to hear this," he says.

"I need to hear it," I reply. He sighs.

"It's not...it wasn't you, Mulder," he says. "It's not who you were."

Well, there you have it, I guess. _It's a Wonderful Life_ in reverse: I have seen what life would be like if I died, and it turns out there's not a whole lot to look forward to. Not even a really kick-ass burial service.

"Please at least tell me Frohike didn't make a fool out of himself."

"Cried like a baby," Skinner rejoins with a straight face.

The sound of a key in the lock interrupts the grudging smile I'm beginning to form. Scully stands there wide-eyed, her eyes performing an unmistakable once-over. It used to be that Scully's sliding up and down the length of my body like that meant we were both about to get some. Now I know she's merely checking me over for damages, though even she must know that thanks to the miraculous healing powers of alien technology, none of my scars are visible.

"You're awake," she says unnecessarily. "How long..." She glances at Skinner.

"About five minutes after you left," he reports.

I nod toward the white bag in Scully's hand. "Presents for me? Scully, you shouldn't have," I say brightly.

Something in her seems to deflate, and she sighs. "You're right, I shouldn't have," she says distantly. She glances at Skinner again and an uncomfortable silence settles in the room.

"I need to get back to the office," Skinner announces tactfully, giving both Scully and me meaningful looks in turn. Somewhere during the time I was missing Skinner seems to have gone from hard-ass boss to authoritative parental figure, an improbable cast change that wasn't listed in my re-entry manual.

Skinner and Scully have a whispered, furtive conference in the hallway, and then Scully re-enters, looking pensive.

"Mulder, we need to talk," she begins, her face looking as though she's steeling herself for an argument. "This..." Her eyes flicker tellingly towards Will's room. "...isn't working."

What isn't working, Scully? Which part? The part where I wake up sobbing on the floor or the part where you call Skinner over to play "Welcome back to life, I'll be your tour guide today"?

"I know this hasn't been easy for you," she continues, characteristic understatement intact. "You've been through so much. And if this" — she indicates the apartment — "isn't what you want..."

The silence hangs in the air between us. "What makes you think this isn't what I want?" I say thickly, looking down at my shoes.

"The nightmares, the flashbacks, are getting worse," Scully says carefully. "You flinch every time I touch you. You look at William like — " She stops abruptly, uncomfortably, and looks away.

"Like what?" I challenge her.

"Like you're afraid of him," she finishes, her eyes meeting mine defiantly. My instant protest dies on my lips; my defense is weak, and Scully knows it.

"You _are_ afraid of him," she whispers, and something rises bitterly in the back of my throat.

"God, Scully," I choke out. "I'm not afraid of Will. I'm afraid of..." The words clog in my mouth, cutting off my air. "I'm afraid of what I might do to him," I confess.

Bless her, Scully looks positively stunned by this pronouncement, as if she's actually never considered this as a possibility.

"I don't understand," she says finally. "Mulder you...I know you. You would never hurt William."

She must know I'm concerned about more than accidentally causing him diaper rash.

"Scully, I was missing for six months and in the ground for three. We have no way of knowing what was done to me, other than that it takes a truckload of sedatives to get over. Aren't you at all concerned that I might hurt the baby? Or..." I hesitate. "Or you?" My voice is tight, strangled, not at all like my own.

Scully lifts her head and stares straight through me with those commanding blue eyes, that gaze that can make me believe in anything as long as Scully is saying it. "No," she says firmly. "Mulder, when you were in the hospital, your body was examined for evidence of microchips — "

"They don't need a microchip anymore to control a man's brain," I point out. Scully doesn't even blink.

" — and even if you _had_ been implanted...Mulder, I know you," she says for the second time today. "You would die before you hurt me or the baby." Suddenly her eyes fill, and I sense the unspoken conclusion: Mulder, you did die. Why can't you be happy that you came back?

"It's not just that," I say after we have both fallen silent. "It's...Scully, I look at Will and I remember when my father went from all-around American dad to someone I didn't know anymore. He had a family and he stumbled into a conspiracy that destroyed everything he had worked for. Scully, my father..." I hesitate, unsure of how to make her understand. "My father went in blindly. He had no idea what his actions would cause. But I can't say the same for myself. How can I be a part of Will's life when we both know what the consequences might be?"

She sits very still for a moment. "Then why," she says stiffly, "did you ever agree to this in the first place?"

I look at her sitting there — my fierce, luminous Scully — and I know the answer: Because no price seemed too high for Scully's happiness.

Even now, death seems like a fair trade.

"And what did you expect me to do?" Scully continues softly when I don't answer. "That I would just leave behind all the work we've done all these years? That I would just leave _you_ behind?"

"Then what _were_ you thinking?" I explode. "Scully, how many times...how many times have you talked about getting out of the car, about building a normal life? I thought...that this could be your chance."

Her eyes are blazing. "Without you," she says flatly. She sighs.

"I was thinking," she continues deliberately, "that there are other people out there who can help. I was thinking that you and I aren't the only two people in the world who can be entrusted with the tasking of saving it. I was thinking that we both deserved a chance at happiness."

We?

I must look like I'm hearing a foreign language, because Scully moves closer to me and grasps my hand.

"Mulder, when the in vitro didn't take, I realized something," she says quietly. "I realized that asking you to help me conceive a child was a mistake."

As if on cue, the room swirls dizzily, and Scully holds up a hand as I open my mouth to protest.

"Please, hear me out," she says. "I realized I was wrong to think I could get back what was taken from me by having a child. And I realized that I was only presenting myself with an impossible choice. That one day..." She takes a shaky breath. "One day I would have to choose between you and my child."

Scully, I would never make you choose, I think, and then I remember the time my partner couldn't even keep her *dog* safe from the harm that inevitably accompanies a routine investigation of an X-File. My chest tightens.

_"Did Dad ever ask you if he had a favorite? Did he make you make a choice?"_

Like father, like son.

As if she can read my thoughts, Scully's grip on my hand tightens.

"But then I did get pregnant," she says. "After I had stopped believing it was possible, after I had come to terms with my choice. And suddenly you were gone, Mulder, and I didn't even know where to start. It was almost as if..."

"As if God had chosen for you," I finish in a low voice. Scully looks dismayed, her eyes filling with tears.

"Mulder, I told you I prayed a lot, and that my prayers had been answered," she says. "I don't know what hand God played in this, but I believe He heard my prayer. For both of us." She squeezes my hand. "You're not alone in this, Mulder. Please don't ever think that you are."

She lets go of my hand and slowly gets to her feet. "You're not your father," she says softly. "But you're the only one who can decide if you want to be William's."

"Is that what you think this is about?" I say, finally finding my voice. "That I'm having flashbacks because I'm subconsciously rejecting the idea of fatherhood?" I don't have to add that I think it's the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard; one thing death has not taken out of me is my talent for tonal sarcasm.

She closes her eyes briefly. "I don't know what I think," she admits, and the finality of her tone scares me. If this is the climax of our conversation, the denouement can't be far off.

I've been close to death before. In fact, I've been more than close to death before, and I've always bounced back: back to the X-Files, back to my apartment, back to Scully. This time Scully's had a baby in the time I was gone, my apartment's been rented away to a tenant less likely to trigger murders in the building, and with the "close" taken out of "close encounter," I'm not sure I can bring myself to face an X-File anytime soon. This time there's nothing to bounce back to. This time it's like launching an entirely new life.

What if Scully is right?

A small cry goes up from the bedroom, and Scully automatically starts towards the door, leaving me sitting frozen on the couch. Will busts out his shrillest, most insistent wail, the one that bears an uncanny resemblance to the screaming of sirens, and I can feel my body tense, thinking no, please no, not again —

And suddenly the alarms are interrupted by Scully's soft murmur, the sound of her muted, tuneless voice singing "Joy to the World" to our son — I think it's the only song to which she knows all the words.

In my mind I picture them in there: Will, scrunchy and red-faced from crying, Scully bouncing him as gracefully as a baby can be bounced, and abruptly I'm careening towards a culminating epiphany that would do George Bailey proud.

I have Scully. I have my son. Hell, I even have a boss who will drop everything in the middle of the afternoon to help Scully drag my sorry ass off the floor.

When a man dies and comes back to find he has everything he's ever wanted, hasn't he wound up in heaven after all?

Scully turns in mild surprise as I enter the bedroom, one hand stroking the top of Will's jiggling head. I clear my throat.

"I'll take your pills," I say in a low voice. "I'll learn to meditate if I have to, I'll even eat yogurt mixed with bee pollen if you think it'll help." I take a step closer to them and William studies me with interest.

"But this is what I want," I tell her as William's hand suddenly lunges for mine, and Scully's face relaxes into a smile.

I guess we do know how it's going to end.


	2. The Deep Untangling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Thus far, Mulder and his son have at least one thing in common: For several months this past year, they both slept like the dead."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "People die sometimes so near you  
> you feel them struggling to cross over,  
> the deep untangling, of one body from another."  
> \--from "What Saves Us," by Bruce Weigl
> 
> "Once you lose someone it is never exactly  
> the same person who comes back."  
> \--from "Feared Drowned," by Sharon Olds

Mulder's screams wake me before William's.

Once, it seemed that his screams were all I would have left of Mulder; it was months before I dreamt about anything other than fresh agony on Mulder's lips, before I could remember his voice as anything other than a plea for me to save him. I would wake with his screams still echoing inside of me, wondering if somehow they could reverberate through my body down to where the cells divided and slept, preparing to awaken. Our child. Mulder's and mine.

Thus far, Mulder and his son have at least one thing in common: For several months this past year, they both slept like the dead.

We are idly discussing what I privately think of as our safe-zone topics — the weather, our lunch menu, whether or not William's toothless grin can be labeled gassy grimace or smile — when it happens: Mulder drifts off. It happens gradually, his firm grip on William never loosens even as his gaze slackens and dims. Watching Mulder grow silent, something cold pours through me.

Mulder may have risen from the dead, but he hasn't risen all the way.

"Mulder?"

He jerks, a little guiltily, as if he's dropped back into his old life and I've caught him with an issue of the Adult Video News. For a moment I picture him there in his office, flipping through photos of crop circles and munching on sunflower seeds, and an ache surges in my chest as the image crumbles and decays.

"You're doing it again," I say, as gently as I can. Even so, Mulder flinches. Inexplicably, I find myself mesmerized by the movement, the small gesture that seems to resound in me as loudly as his screams once did, no longer a terrifying premonition but an alarm nonetheless: I am home. I am alive. I am safe.

But just barely.

He blinks and looks away, managing an unconvincing "Oh. Sorry."

"Mulder..." I start to say, willing the ominous overtones to vanish from my voice; the last thing Mulder needs right now, I tell myself, is a lecture on conversational etiquette.

"I'm working on it," he interrupts, quietly insistent. I have listened to enough of Mulder's denials over the years to detect the warning tones that swim beneath the surface of his words.

But this isn't merely another case that got away from us. These days, Mulder still inhabits my apartment like the ghost he almost left behind.

Reluctantly, his eyes meet mine, and my resolve collapses. Surely bearing witness to his rebirth is as startling as the event itself. It's still a wondrous thing to have him in front of me, holding our son in his arms and staring me down as fiercely as though he were still alive.

He is still alive, I remind myself every morning, mouth dry, pulse pounding, willing Mulder to stir as I listen to the sound of his heart. He is still safe. He is still home.

"I know you are, Mulder," I say quietly, reaching out for William; I have been seized suddenly by a longing to touch Mulder, to feel his pulse thrumming beneath my fingers. His skin is cold to the touch, these days, his body stiff and awkward next to mine, and I content myself with an armful of my sleeping son, whose veins are humming contentedly with the blood of his father.

The bottom of William's overalls are sagging. "He needs a diaper change," I say without thinking, wishing I could take it back when it rings accusatorily in my ears. Mulder rises automatically to his feet, his arms outstretched.

"I'll take care of it," he says, his voice wavering somewhere between hopeful and terrified. My own reflexes are not as in tune with Mulder as they once were, and it takes a split second to blink the doubt out of my eyes. There are very few things in this life that I am certain of any longer, but one of them is that fatherhood is not something Mulder ever planned for. When they are alone, Mulder studies William the way he once studied mysterious lights in the sky: with a kind of awe that is breathless and euphoric and tinged with just a hint of trepidation.

Now, Mulder looks like he is rapidly losing his nerve, his tentative smile frozen uncomfortably on his face.

"Mulder, are you sure..." I start to say, and the smile wavers.

"He's my son," Mulder replies with practiced casualness. "Of course I'm sure."

Suddenly I picture him in Oregon, so tender, so sure of himself. 'There's so much more you need to do with your life,' he says. 'There's so much more than this.' At the time, feeling dizzy and weak with William already burgeoning inside of me, I scarcely gave his words any thought; it was just Mulder asking me to leave him for the hundredth time when both of us knew there was no longer any going back.

But maybe Mulder wasn't asking me to leave. Maybe Mulder was saying goodbye.

I let him go to Oregon, I can let him change a diaper, I tell myself as I lift William to Mulder's chest. Suddenly my own arms are around him, pretending I don't feel the way he stiffens, the sound of his breath rigid and shallow in my ear.

"You just need some time," I hear myself say, although my voice sounds like it belongs to someone else; another Dana Scully, one who hasn't yet buried a partner and birthed a son.

Mulder's low murmur is reassuring against the sound of William's happy coos, and I relax into the couch when I hear the rustle of diaper Velcro. Then in an instant the noises of the changing table slide ominously into silence before William's wails are flung into the air like a scarlet flag suddenly unfurled against the sky.

Before I am even aware that I have moved, I find myself on the floor with him, my hands grabbing for his.

"Mulder? Mulder!" My voice is high and tight with panic and I will myself to calm down. Mulder's eyes are wide and blank as he wrenches away from me.

"Mulder," I say commandingly. He shudders once, some of the awareness seeping back into his eyes even as he takes a half-hearted swipe at my hand on his forehead; I've forgotten that our old roles no longer seem to apply, and the man who once couldn't let me walk through a doorway without personally guiding me with his hands now seems to flinch at any intimation of human contact.

"There was nothing," he mumbles, pulling himself into a sitting position without further explanation. Still shaking inside from the past few terrifying minutes, I find myself growing inexplicably angry. In our old lives, Mulder and I perfected the science of pretending nothing was wrong; he disregarded my frequent and vocal objections to his outlandish theories, I overlooked the bad jokes he made at crime scenes. We studiously ignored each other, Mulder and I, for a good seven years.

"Mulder, that was not nothing," I say sharply. I'm just beginning to steel myself for the debate that will inevitably follow — God, there was a time when I thought I would never have this argument again — when Mulder jerks suddenly away from me, his eyes staring past me like a stranger's. William whimpers pitifully as Mulder's chest gives a panicked heave, and then his body goes as still and silent as it had gone into his grave.

Instinctively I am lunging for him, my hands pounding at his chest, unsure if the pulse throbbing in my fingers belongs to Mulder or myself. It is several seconds before I can safely convince myself that Mulder is still here — still alive, still home, but most assuredly not safe, not if the desperate fluttering of his eyes beneath closed lids is any indication. William's miserable sob is very nearly my undoing; for an instant I have to fight the temptation to join in.

I always knew it was impossible to bargain with God, but when Mulder was missing, I tried anyway. Lord, let me find him. Return him to me, and I will do the rest.

My faith in God was strong, but my faith in Mulder was stronger. Except that I never nailed down a crucial aspect of our deal. I never specified that I wanted God to help me find Mulder _alive_.

It's said that God works in mysterious ways. Then again, so does Mulder.

Before I can change my mind, I shift William to my other hip and grab the cordless phone, hitting #7 to connect me directly to Skinner's office. Mulder would die if he knew I had Skinner on speed dial, I think sourly, before the thought explodes in my chest like a grenade.

Mulder would die.

Is this what it's like for him, every minute of the day? A thousand meaningless figures of speech planted like land mines in the dark corners of his brain, ready to strike at any moment? I glance over at him, still out cold on the floor of William's nursery.

Perhaps death feels safer than the horror he has left behind.

I'm so preoccupied with my thoughts I haven't even had time to compose an explanation for Skinner, something to strike the right balance between "Perhaps you'd like to swing by and say hi to Mulder and the baby on your lunch break" and "Mulder has gone crazy and I need your help immediately." I settle for the truth, my voice quaking far too much to conceal what I might otherwise try to deny.

I'm frightened for him.

* * *

Skinner breaks land speed records and several traffic laws to get to my apartment, but Mulder never stirs. Maybe the truth is that I don't have the heart to try to rouse him; sprawled there on the floor, one hand flung underneath William's crib, Mulder looks more peaceful in sleep than he has since he's come home.

"Come home" is the way I've always mentioned it out loud, the way I've always phrased it in my head. After all, that's what it must be like for Mulder, I tell myself — go to Oregon with Skinner, come home to Washington. He couldn't have been aware of the passage of time, of the birth of his son, of his death and rebirth. He couldn't have memories of being missing, of being in a grave.

He couldn't, because it might destroy him. It is destroying him.

No. Our denial is what's destroying him.

Skinner, bless him, asks no questions other than "What would be the best way to move him?" It's only once Mulder is settled on the couch and William is sleeping in his crib that Skinner expectantly looks me in the eye.

"What happened?" he says gravely.

It isn't the first time Skinner has asked me to explain my partner to him. But as much as things have changed between Mulder and me, things have changed between Skinner and me as well. Once I would have lied to Skinner to protect my partner. Now I feel I must confess to Skinner in order to save him.

"I think they're flashbacks," I say quietly, moving away from Mulder toward the door. "But he refuses to discuss them, so I can't be sure."

Skinner takes a moment to digest this, as if he has trouble believing that Mulder — the original Comeback Kid — could be felled by something as insignificant as dying.

Mulder once held this man at gunpoint and announced his own resurrection without blinking. I think Skinner and I both realize that was a long time ago.

"I need to pick something up," I say quickly. "Will you...can you stay with them?"

Skinner surveys me impassively before nodding, and his voice stops me before I can hurry out the door.

"Dana," he begins, my first name stiff and awkward on his lips. "I'm glad you called me."

I nod, avoiding his gaze, and I close the door behind me.

* * *

The pharmacy is stocked full of cards for Father's Day, an irony I am sure Mulder would have appreciated in another life. I walk briskly past them, willing myself not to look, as I head to the back of the store.

The prescription pad in my pocket feels like a betrayal. Mulder intensely dislikes feeling powerless, and the surest way to render him powerless is to drug him. Under the influence of drugs, Mulder has been strapped down and held against his will. He has experienced powerful hallucinations that nearly drove him to suicide.

He has told me he loves me.

I understand Mulder's resistance. But he can't live like this, I tell myself. Something has to give. Reluctantly, I pull the prescription pad out of my pocket.

I'm moving to the counter to grab a pen when I see them — red bags with yellow flowers on them hanging neatly by the cash register.

Sunflower seeds. Mulder once told me that in his childhood, the sound of his father — his father, for whom I named our son — crunching on sunflower seeds was what comforted him after a nightmare. After that, I would wake in the middle of the night in hotel rooms in small towns all across America, listening for the sound of my partner crunching on sunflower seeds.

I don't hear Mulder in the night anymore. Not unless he's screaming.

Impulsively I grab three bags and step to the register, leaving the pen behind.

* * *

I can hear voices as I approach my apartment door, and something clenches in my chest, steeling for what's ahead.

Mulder is standing in the hallway. I can't stop my eyes from roaming the length of his body. I'm not sure what I expect to find. Mulder has never worn his scars where anyone can see them.

"You're awake," I say unnecessarily, glancing at Skinner. "How long...?"

"About five minutes after you left," Skinner reports.

Mulder flashes me his best attempt at the kind of grin he hasn't actually sported since 1994.

"Presents for me?" he says caustically, nodding toward the white bag in my hand; in his mind it's surely full of Zoloft or Klonopin. "Scully, you shouldn't have."

Something shudders down my spine, inexplicable rage mixed with incredible relief — not an uncommon blend of emotions to direct towards Mulder.

"You're right, I shouldn't have," I hear myself say. I glance away from him and an uncomfortable silence settles around us, broken only when Skinner tactfully announces his departure.

I follow Skinner into the hallway, where he shrugs on his trenchcoat before looking me in the eye.

"He's going to be fine, Dana," he says. "You have to believe that."

I don't have to believe anything, I want to tell him, still clutching the bag of sunflower seeds like a shield. Not anymore.

"Thank you for coming," I say formally, trying to ignore the panic swelling in my chest. I became a pathologist because I knew I couldn't fix everything, because I was practical enough to understand that the best thing I could do with my medical degree was dissect a body in search of the secrets it could tell. I could diagnose Mulder if he were dead, put scalpel to bone and calculate where and when things had gone wrong.

But Mulder has already survived things that are worse than death, and for all my prayers I don't know now how to help him.

Skinner puts a hand on my arm as he prepares to leave. "If you need anything," he says, "let me know."

I nod in reply, but my thoughts are already in the next room.

Mulder and I have never been the poster children for effective communication, but something needs to change.

"Mulder, we need to talk," I say as I walk into the living room, unable to meet his eyes. "This isn't working."

I've rehearsed the speech in my head for weeks, but seeing him there in front of me, my resolve almost crumbles.

Mulder is home. He is alive. He is safe. Return him to me, I had said, and I will deal with the rest.

But can I deal with it if Mulder doesn't want to?

"I know this hasn't been easy for you," I say carefully around the growing lump in my throat. "You've been through so much. And if this isn't what you want..."

Mulder's hands hang limply at his sides, his gaze narrowly focused on the floor.

"What makes you think this isn't what I want?" he says dully.

"The nightmares, the flashbacks, are getting worse," I say quietly. "You flinch every time I touch you. You look at William like..."

Before — before he vanished into the Oregon forest in front of Skinner's eyes, before his violated body went into the North Carolina ground — Mulder used to gaze at me with such passion and intensity in his eyes that I had to look away. Now I look at his eyes and see nothing.

"Like what?" he says flatly, and I can feel the bile rise in the back of my throat. He wants to make me say it.

"Like you're afraid of him," I finish. I expect an instant flash of rage, of denial, but it never comes; Mulder just gapes at me. His silence is infinitely worse than a protest.

"You _are_ afraid of him," I say dumbly, and for the first time in weeks something animates in Mulder's face.

"God, Scully, I'm not afraid of Will," he says, agonized. His voice drops to a low murmur, so low I can hardly hear him. "I'm afraid of what I might do to him."

His statement hangs in the air between us, assaulting me with the sheer dread in it.

"I don't understand," I say slowly. "Mulder, you -- I know you. You would never hurt William."

You would die before you hurt your son, I nearly add. You would die for us.

Mulder draws himself up to his full height, his thin frame quivering with the force of his words.

"Scully, I was missing for six months and in the ground for three," he hisses, as if either of us needs to be reminded. "We have no way of knowing what was done to me, other than that it takes a truckload of sedatives to get over. "Aren't you at all concerned that I might hurt the baby? Or..." He swallows convulsively and looks away. "Or you?"

Mulder once told me that it was my rationalism and my science that had saved him. But today it is my gut that gives me the answer.

"No," I say firmly. "Mulder, when you were in the hospital, your body was examined for evidence of microchips — "

"They don't need a microchip anymore to control a man's brain," Mulder interrupts.

" — and even if you *had* been implanted," I plow forward, ignoring him, "Mulder, I know you. You would die before you hurt me or the baby."

There it is. You would die. The sentence I swore I would never speak out loud.

"It's not just that," Mulder says tightly, words tumbling out of him that he has been damming up for weeks. "It's...Scully, I look at Will and I remember when my father went from all-around American dad to someone I didn't know anymore. He had a family and he stumbled into a conspiracy that destroyed everything he had worked for. Scully, my father...My father went in blindly. He had no idea what his actions would cause. But I can't say the same for myself. How can I be a part of Will's life when we both know what the consequences might be?"

For a moment I can only stare at him, startled into silence. Is that what Mulder fears — that his own relentless pursuit of the truth will place his child at the mercy of a global conspiracy? That I had never considered the consequences of my own actions?

"Then why did you ever agree to this in the first place?" I ask, stunned. When Mulder doesn't answer, I keep going, the words pouring out of me and threatening to bleed into each other.

"And what did you expect me to do?" I say. "That I would just leave behind all the work we've done all these years? That I would just leave _you_ behind?"

Abruptly Mulder's anger resurfaces, his eyes flashing dangerously. "Then what _were_ you thinking?" he explodes. "Scully, how many times...how many times have you talked about getting out of the car, building a normal life? I thought...that this could be your chance."

"Without you," I say disbelievingly. I choose my words carefully, hoping to make him understand. "I was thinking that there are other people out there who can help," I say quietly. "I was thinking that you and I aren't the only two people in the world who can be entrusted with the task of saving it. I was thinking that we both deserved a chance at happiness."

He merely stares at me uncomprehendingly; happiness is a concept with which Mulder has never been intimately acquainted. Does he think that all I ever wanted or needed from him was his genetic material?

Risking rejection, I move closer to him and take his hand.

"Mulder," I say softly, unsure of how to make the words come out right, "when the in vitro didn't take, I realized something. I realized that asking you to help me conceive a child was a mistake."

I regret the words as soon as I've said them; the last time Mulder looked at me like this, I had just shot him.

"Please, hear me out," I say quickly. "I realized that I was wrong to think that I could get back what was taken from me by having a child. And I realized that I was only presenting myself with an impossible choice. That one day...one day I would have to choose between you and my child."

But now I don't have to choose, I remind myself, tightening my grip on Mulder's hand as if to assure myself that he is still here.

"But then I did get pregnant," I continue. "After I stopped believing it was possible, after I had come to terms with my choice. And suddenly you were gone, Mulder, and I didn't know where to start. It was almost as if..."

Mulder has always had the mind of an investigator but the soul of a poet, and he intuitively grasps the heart of the dilemma. "As if God had chosen for you," he finishes in a low voice.

No, I think, looking at him in dismay. I don't know what God had to do with Mulder's disappearance, but it certainly wasn't the answer to any of my prayers.

Return him to me, I had asked when Mulder was missing. And now Mulder sits in front of me, gaunt and shaken, but with something so familiar lurking beneath the surface.

I have to believe that that was God's choice. "Mulder," I say softly, "I told you that I prayed a lot, and that my prayers had been answered. I don't know what hand God played in this, but I believe He heard my prayer. For both of us." I squeeze his hand, still unwilling to let go. To ever let go. "You're not alone in this, Mulder. Please don't ever think that you are."

Reluctantly I pull away from him, rising to my feet. I have made my choice, and God has made His; the rest, I realize with apprehension, is up to Mulder.

The choice to panic, or the choice to be brave; the choice to retreat, or the choice to move forward.

Perhaps it is the choice that anchors him to the past. Perhaps, I think, it is a choice that will propel him forward.

"You're not your father," I tell him, and Mulder looks up at me in surprise. "But you're the only one who can decide if you want to be William's."

"Is that what you think this is about?" Mulder says derisively. "That I'm having flashbacks because I'm subconsciously rejecting the idea of fatherhood?"

I find myself closing my eyes briefly, just to avoid his piercing gaze. "I don't know what to think," I admit.

When William's cry shatters the silence in the living room, I'm almost grateful for the interruption. Numb from what has just transpired, I move on autopilot into William's room, slipping easily into the routine of the past few months: Flip light switch, grab diaper, worry about Mulder.

William's face is puffy and red from screaming. It looked the same way the day that I met him, just weeks after I stood with Skinner in the cemetery and watched Mulder's body go into the ground. William didn't look at all like him, not then, but that day I imagined that I felt Mulder with me, standing behind me in the delivery room and whispering in my ear. I felt him so strongly that when William was placed in my arms, waving his tiny hand and screaming his head off, my first instinct as a mother was to comfort him in a way I had never reassured anyone besides his father.

"Joy to the world..."

It was toneless and tinged with sadness, but it was something tangible, something that reminded me that Mulder had once been here with me, with William, though neither of us had realized it at the time.

"All the boys and girls," I murmur, tickling his stomach, and William's cries begin to fade away.

"Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea," I tell William solemnly, and he regards me with unabashed delight.

I almost miss overhearing the muffled sound of a sob in the living room as I concentrate on lifting William out of his crib.

A sound makes me turn, my hand still pressed to Will's head. Mulder fills the doorway, the expression in his eyes so familiar I can hardly believe I once thought I might never see it again. Longing. And life.

"I'll take your pills," he says in a low voice, before I can open my mouth to speak. "I'll learn to meditate if I have to, I'll even eat yogurt mixed with bee pollen if you think it'll help."

He takes a step closer to us, the sound of his breath filling the space between us and all the spaces in between.

"But this is what I want," he concludes hoarsely, his eyes locked fiercely on mine.

Sometimes the truth seems unbearable, poised like a bullet to destroy us. And sometimes, I think as William's hand lunges for Mulder's, the truth is a beacon, guiding us home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I have set before you this day life and death,  
> blessing and curse; therefore, choose life,  
> that both you and your children shall live." --  
> Deuteronomy 30:20
> 
> This fic was originally written/posted in 2006.


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